A Swiftly Tilting Planet

by Madeleine L'engle

  Ananda thumped; light from the student lamp glinted against her eyes, turning them to gold. Her coat shone with a healthy glow.

  "Make way for me." Meg climbed back into bed. "Now, Ananda"--she was taking comfort in reverting to her child's habit of talking out loud to the family animals--"what we're going to do is listen, very intently, for Charles Wallace. You have to help me kythe, or you'll have to get off the bed." She rubbed her hand over Ananda's coat, which smelled of ferns and moss and autumn berries, and felt a warm and gentle tingling, which vibrated through her hand and up her arm. Into her mind's eye came a clear image of Charles Wallace walking across what had once been the twins' vegetable garden, but which was now a small grove of young Christmas trees, a project they could care for during vacations. Their magnificent vegetable garden had been plowed under when they went to college. Meg missed it, but she knew that both her parents were much too busy to tend to more than a small patch of lettuce and tomatoes.

  Charles Wallace continued to walk along the familiar route.

  Hand resting on Ananda, the tingling warmth flowing back and forth between them, Meg followed her brother's steps. When he reached the open space where the star-watching rock was, Ananda's breathing quickened; Meg could feel the rise and fall of the big dog's rib cage under her hand.

  There was no moon, but starlight touched the winter grasses with silver. The woods behind the rock were a dark shadow. Charles Wallace looked across the valley, across the dark ridge of pines, to the shadows of the hills beyond. Then he threw back his head and called,

  "In this fateful hour I call on all

  Heaven with its power!"

  The brilliance of the stars increased. Charles Wallace continued to gaze upward. He focused on one star which throbbed with peculiar intensity. A beam of light as strong as a ladder but clear as water flowed between the star and Charles Wallace, and it was impossible to tell whether the light came from the piercing silver-blue of the star or the light blue eyes of the boy. The beam became stronger and firmer and then all the light resolved itself in a flash of radiance beside the boy. Slowly the radiance took on form, until it had enfleshed itself into the body of a great white beast with flowing mane and tail. From its forehead sprang a silver horn which contained the residue of the light. It was a creature of utter and absolute perfection.

  The boy put his hand against the great white flanks, which heaved as though the creature had been racing. He could feel the warm blood coursing through the veins as the light had coursed between star and boy. "Are you real?" he asked in a wondering voice.

  The creature gave a silver neigh which translated itself into the boy's mind as "I am not real. And yet in a sense I am that which is the only reality."

  "Why have you come?" The boy's own breath was rapid, not so much with apprehension as with excitement and anticipation.

  "You called on me."

  "The rune--" Charles Wallace whispered. He looked with loving appreciation at the glorious creature standing beside him on the star-watching rock. One silvershod hoof pawed lightly, and the rock rang with clarion sound. "A unicorn. A real unicorn."

  "That is what you call me. Yes."

  "What are you, really?"

  "What are you, really?" the unicorn countered. "You called me, and because there is great need, I am here."

  "You know the need?"

  "I have seen it in your mind."

  "How is it that you speak my language?"

  The unicorn neighed again, the sound translucent as silver bubbles. "I do not. I speak the ancient harmony."

  "Then how is it that I understand?"

  "You are very young, but you belong to the Old Music."

  "Do you know my name?"

  "Here, in this When and Where, you are called Charles Wallace. It is a brave name. It will do."

  Charles Wallace stretched up on tiptoe to reach his arms about the beautiful beast's neck. "What am I to call you?"

  "You may call me Gaudior." The words dropped on the rock like small bells.

  Charles Wallace looked thoughtfully at the radiance of the horn. "Gaudior. That's Latin for more joyful."

  The unicorn neighed in acquiescence.

  "That joy in existence without which ..."

  Gaudior struck his hoof lightly on the rock, with the sound of a silver trumpet. "Do not push your understanding too far."

  "But I'm not wrong about Gaudior?"

  "In a sense, yes; in a sense, no."

  "You're real and you're not real; I'm wrong and I'm right."

  "What is real?" Gaudior's voice was as crystal as the horn.

  "What am I supposed to do, now that I've called on all Heaven with its power and you've come?"

  Gaudior neighed. "Heaven may have sent me, but my powers are closely defined and narrowly limited. And I've never been sent to your planet before. It's considered a hardship assignment." He looked down in apology.

  Charles Wallace studied the snow-dusted rock at his feet. "We haven't done all that well by our planet, have we?"

  "There are many who would like to let you wipe yourselves out, except it would affect us all; who knows what might happen? And as long as there are even a few who belong to the Old Music, you are still our brothers and sisters."

  Charles Wallace stroked Gaudior's long, aristocratic nose. "What should I do, then?"

  "We're in it together." Gaudior knelt delicately and indicated that Charles Wallace was to climb up onto his back. Even with the unicorn kneeling, it was with difficulty that the boy clambered up and sat astride, up toward the great neck, so that he could hold on to the silver mane. He pressed his feet in their rubber boots as tightly as he could against the unicorn's flanks.

  Gaudior asked, "Have you ridden the wind before?"

  "No."

  "We have to be careful of Echthroi," Gaudior warned. "They try to ride the wind and throw us off course."

  "Echthroi--" Charles Wallace's eyes clouded. "That means the enemy."

  "Echthroi," Gaudior repeated. "The ancient enemy. He who distorted the harmony, and who has gathered an army of destroyers. They are everywhere in the universe."

  Charles Wallace felt a ripple of cold move along his spine.

  "Hold my mane," the unicorn advised. "There's always the possibility of encountering an Echthros, and if we do, it'll try to unseat you."

  Charles Wallace's knuckles whitened as he clutched the heavy mane. The unicorn began to run, skimming over the tops of the grasses, up, over the hills, flinging himself onto the wind and riding with it, up, up, over the stars ...

  THREE

  The sun with its brightness

  In her attic bedroom Meg regarded Ananda, who thumped her massive tail in a friendly manner. "What's this about?" Meg demanded.

  Ananda merely thudded again, waking the kitten, who gave a halfhearted brrtt and stalked across the pillow.

  Meg looked at her battered alarm clock, which stood in its familiar place on the bookcase. The hands did not seem to have moved. "Whatever's going on, I don't understand."

  Ananda whined softly, an ordinary whine coming from an ordinary dog of questionable antecedents, a mongrel like many in the village.

  "Gaudior," Meg murmured. "More joyful. That's a good name for a unicorn. Gaudior, Ananda: that joy without which the universe will fall apart and collapse. Has the world lost its joy? Is that why we're in such a mess?" She stroked Ananda thoughtfully, then held up the hand which had been pressing against the dog's flank. It glowed with radiant warmth. "I told Charles Wallace I'm out of practice in kything. Maybe I've been settling for the grownup world. How did you know we needed you, Ananda? And when I touch you I can kythe even more deeply than I've ever done before." She put her hand back on the comfortable flank and closed her eyes, shivering with the strain of concentration.

  She saw neither Charles Wallace nor the unicorn. She saw neither the familiar earth with the star-watching rock, the woods, the hills, nor the night sky with its countless galaxies. She saw nothing. Nothin
g. There was no wind to ride or be blown by.

  Nothing was. She was not. There was no dark. There was no light. No sight nor sound nor touch nor smell nor taste. No sleeping nor waking. No dreaming, no knowing.

  Nothing.

  And then a surge of joy.

  All senses alive and awake and filled with joy.

  Darkness was, and darkness was good. As was light.

  Light and darkness dancing together, born together, born of each other, neither preceding, neither following, both fully being, in joyful rhythm.

  The morning stars sang together and the ancient harmonies were new and it was good. It was very good.

  And then a dazzling star turned its back on the dark, and it swallowed the dark, and in swallowing the dark it became the dark, and there was something wrong with the dark, as there was something wrong with the light. And it was not good. The glory of the harmony was broken by screeching, by hissing, by laughter which held no merriment but was hideous, horrendous cacophony.

  With a strange certainty Meg knew that she was experiencing what Charles Wallace was experiencing. She saw neither Charles Wallace nor the unicorn, but she knew through Charles Wallace's knowing.

  The breaking of the harmony was pain, was brutal anguish, but the harmony kept rising above the pain, and the joy would pulse with light, and light and dark once more knew each other, and were part of the joy.

  Stars and galaxies rushed by, came closer, closer, until many galaxies were one galaxy, one galaxy was one solar system, one solar system was one planet. There was no telling which planet, for it was still being formed. Steam boiled upward from its molten surface. Nothing could live in this primordial caldron.

  Then came the riders of the wind when all the riders sang the ancient harmonies and the melody was still new, and the gentle breezes cooled the burning. And the boiling, hissing, flaming, steaming, turned to rain, aeons of rain, clouds emptying themselves in continuing torrents of rain which covered the planet with healing darkness, until the clouds were nearly emptied and a dim light came through their veils and touched the water of the ocean so that it gleamed palely, like a great pearl.

  Land emerged from the seas, and on the land green began to spread. Small green shoots rose to become great trees, ferns taller than the tallest oaks. The air was fresh and smelled of rain and sun, of green of tree and plant, blue of sky.

  The air grew heavy with moisture. The sun burned like brass behind a thick gauze of cloud. Heat shimmered on the horizon. A towering fern was pushed aside by a small greenish head on a long, thick neck, emerging from a massive body. The neck swayed sinuously while the little eyes peered about.

  Clouds covered the sun. The tropical breeze heightened, became a cold wind. The ferns drooped and withered. The dinosaurs struggled to move away from the cold, dying as their lungs collapsed from the radical change in temperature. Ice moved inexorably across the land. A great white bear padded along, snuffling, looking for food.

  Ice and snow and then rain again and at last sunlight breaking through the clouds, and green again, green of grass and trees, blue of sky by day, sparkle of stars by night.

  *

  Unicorn and boy were in a gentle, green glade, surrounded by trees.

  "Where are we?" Charles Wallace asked.

  "We're here," the unicorn replied impatiently.

  "Here?"

  Gaudior snorted. "Don't you recognize it?"

  Charles Wallace looked around at the unfamiliar landscape. Tree ferns spread their fronds skyward as though drinking blue. Other trees appeared to be lifting their branches to catch the breeze. The boy turned to Gaudior. "I've never been here before."

  Gaudior shook his head in puzzlement. "But it's your own Where, even if it's not your own When."

  "My own what?"

  "Your own Where. Where you stood and called on all Heaven with its power and I was sent to you."

  Again Charles Wallace scanned the unfamiliar landscape and shook his head.

  "It's a very different When," Gaudior conceded. "You're not accustomed to moving through time?"

  "I've moved through fifteen years' worth of time."

  "But only in one direction."

  "Oh--" Understanding came to the boy. "This isn't my time, is it? Do you mean that Where we are now is the same place as the star-watching rock and the woods and the house, but it's a different time?"

  "For unicorns it is easier to move about in time than in space. Until we learn more what we are meant to do, I am more comfortable if we stay in the same Where."

  "You know Where we are, then? I mean--When we are? Is it time gone, or time to be?"

  "It is, I think, what you would call Once Upon a Time and Long Ago."

  "So we're not in the present."

  "Of course we are. Whenever we are is present."

  "We're not in my present. We're not When we were when you came to me."

  "When I was called to you," Gaudior corrected. "And When is not what matters. It's what happens in the When that matters. Are you ready to go?"

  "But--didn't you say we're right here? Where the star-watching rock was--I mean, will be?"

  "That's what I said." Gaudior's hoof pawed the lush green of the young grass. "If you are to accomplish what you have been asked to accomplish, you will have to travel in and out."

  "In and out of time?"

  "Time, yes. And people."

  Charles Wallace looked at him in startlement. "What?"

  "You have been called to find a Might-Have-Been, and in order to do this, you will have to be sent Within."

  "Within--Within someone else?... But I don't know if I can."

  "Why not?" Gaudior demanded.

  "But--if I go Within someone else--what happens to my own body?"

  "It will be taken care of."

  "Will I get it back?"

  "If all goes well."

  "And if all does not go well?"

  "Let us hold firmly to all going well."

  Charles Wallace wrapped his arms about himself as though for warmth. "And you wonder that I'm frightened?"

  "Of course you're frightened. I'm frightened, too."

  "Gaudior, it's a very scary thing just to be told casually that you're going to be inside someone else's body. What happens to me?"

  "I'm not entirely sure. But you don't get lost. You stay you. If all goes well."

  "But I'm someone else, too?"

  "If you're open enough."

  "If I'm in another body, do I have to be strong enough for both of us?"

  "Perhaps," Gaudior pointed out, "your host will be the stronger of the two. Are you willing?"

  "I don't know ..." He seemed to hear Meg warning him that it was always disastrous when he decided that he was capable of taking on, singlehanded, more than anyone should take on.

  "It would appear," Gaudior said, "that you have been called. And the calling is never random, it is always according to the purpose."

  "What purpose?"

  Gaudior ignored him. "It appears that you are gifted in going Within."

  "But I've never--"

  "Are you not able to go Within your sister?"

  "When we kythe, then, yes, a little. But I don't literally go Within Meg, or become Meg. I stay me."

  "Do you?"

  Charles Wallace pondered this. "When I'm kything with Meg, I'm wholly aware of her. And when she kythes with me, then she's more aware of me than she is of herself. I guess kything is something like your going Within--that makes it sound a little less scary."

  Gaudior twitched his beard. "Now you have been called to go Within in the deepest way of all. And I have been called to help you." The light in his horn pulsed and dimmed. "You saw the beginning."

  "Yes."

  "And you saw how a destroyer, almost since the beginning, has tried to break the ancient harmonies?"

  "Where did the destroyer come from?"

  "From the good, of course. The Echthros wanted all the glory for itself, and when that happens the go
od becomes not good; and others have followed that first Echthros. Wherever the Echthroi go, the shadows follow, and try to ride the wind. There are places where no one has ever heard the ancient harmonies. But there is always a moment when there is a Might-Have-Been. What we must do is find the Might-Have-Beens which have led to this particular evil. I have seen many Might-Have-Beens. If such and such had been chosen, then this would not have followed. If so and so had been done, then the light would partner the dark instead of being snuffed out. It is possible that you can move into the moment of a Might-Have-Been and change it."

  Charles Wallace's fingers tightened in the silver mane. "I know I can't avert disaster just because Mrs. O'Keefe told me to. I may be arrogant, but not that arrogant. But my sister is having a baby, and I can be strong enough to attempt to avert disaster for her sake. And Mrs. O'Keefe gave me the rune ..." He looked around him at the fresh green world. Although he was still wearing boots and the warm Norwegian anorak, he was not uncomfortable. Suddenly song surrounded him, and a flock of golden birds settled in the trees. "When are we, then? How long ago?"

  "Long. I took us all the way back before this planet's Might-Have-Beens, before people came and quarreled and learned to kill."

  "How did we get to here--to long ago?"

  "On the wind. The wind blows where it will."

  "Will it take us Where--When--you want us to go?"

  The light of the unicorn's horn pulsed, and the light in the horn, holding the blue of the sky, was reflected in Charles Wallace's eyes. "Before the harmonies were broken, unicorns and winds danced together with joy and no fear. Now there are Echthroi who are greedy for the wind, as for all else, so there are times when they ride the wind and turn it into a tornado, and you had better be grateful we didn't ride one of those--it's always a risk. But we did come to When I wanted, to give us a little time to catch our breaths."

  The golden birds fluttered about them, and then the sky was filled with a cloud of butterflies which joined the birds in patterned flight. In the grass little jeweled lizards darted.

  "Here the wind has not been troubled," Gaudior said. "Come. This glimpse is all I can give you of this golden time."

  "Must we leave so soon?"

  "The need is urgent."

  Yes, the need was indeed urgent. Charles Wallace looked up at the unicorn. "Where do we go now?"